


Proximate Comfort

by by_no_one_more_than_me (Lady_Cleo)



Series: All the Comforts of Home [2]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternative Therapeutic Techniques, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Insomnia, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 00:19:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20957339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Cleo/pseuds/by_no_one_more_than_me
Summary: Malcolm doesn't sleep with anyone. Most of the time, he doesn't sleep at all.His father has an idea.





	Proximate Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> Proximate (adj) - closest in space or time; (esp. of the cause of something) closest in relationship; immediate.

The broken window only lasts 2 days, Mommy dearest too concerned with the upkeep of appearances to let cardboard and duct tape stand. The glaziers were nice enough, getting the job done while Malcolm is busy getting a book signed by a childhood hero. Then saving them from a killer.

(Probably for the best. He's been exposed to a lot of things in his life; the elements don't need to be one of them.)

Another present are the new anchor plates for his straps, attached to the reinforced baseboards with 8 inch locking steel bolts. They could hold back a Panzer... provided the wall didn't cave first. The bed is made and the sheets are clean, all traces of chloroform drips gone - even if the fractured ephemera of resurrected memories lingers like the stench of decomp.

He's settling in for another long night, first cuff neatly locked, when a soft shuffling sound reaches his ear. It could be the bird. _I mean, it _could_ be._

Malcolm looks left - and there she is, perched on the breakfast bar in a loosely knotted posture that resembles an uncomfortable yoga pose. Organic origami.

Somehow what could make a gaggle of middle-aged Manhattan socialites cry into their Lululemons works for her.

She doesn't speak, just tips her head to regard him a minute before unfolding herself and hopping down, landing noiselessly on the floor and walking over. Stalking over, slow and unhurried like a bored panther, random details emerging in the dim light from the bedside lamp with every silent step.

A wool peacoat _(Todd Snyder from 2 seasons ago; interesting)_ hangs open over dark blue pjs, the snug brushed cotton top and capri bottoms swirling with golden galaxies. He appreciates that she left the Murder Daddy attire at home, before realizing that was probably the point. And that his father's cell in the Claremont Psychiatric Hospital probably shouldn't count as _'home'._

Malcolm's gaze falls to her feet and lands on the fluffy star print socks he'd brought on his last visit, peeking out over the cuffs of her unlaced boots like curious caterpillars. He's weirdly happy she liked them enough to wear them and for a moment wonders what she thought of the matcha tea bites dipped in dark chocolate... then sees a flash of her draped across his father's desk feeding him pieces by hand, or holding one in her smile while he leans in to claim it with a ki- _**Stop.** _Shaking his head to derail that particular train of thought, Malcolm reminds himself she's broken into his home.

There's probably a reason for that.

"So... what're you doing here?"

In lieu of the disappointing normality that would have been a verbal reply (curious as he still is about the sound of her voice) a phone emerges from her coat pocket and sits nestled in the palm of her hand. Her nails are cleanly painted in a black-on-black French manicure, a high gloss strip winking in the light against the absorbing matte underneath. Ainsley had been at dinner last night with the same design in shades of red and all he can think is that it looks better in black than blood.

Those eyes of hers lock into his like Bright-seeking missiles as her thumb taps at the screen and his father's voice spills out into a space Malcolm secretly hoped he would never occupy.

_"Hello, son." _

_Oh, God. _It feels weird shutting his eyes against this invasion, blocking her out when he shouldn't to block out his dad where he can't. By the time a few moments of banal pleasantries have passed he's forced his eyes open, determined to see this thing through. Whatever 'this thing' is.

_"I know you've been having some trouble sleeping lately."_

_Oh, no. Not long, Dad. Just these last 18 years or so._

_"I acknowledge I might have... had something to do with that. I'm sorry. And your mother said-" _There's a quiet skip in the audio, a sucked-in gasp caused by the negligent stick of a penknife behind the ear. If he hadn't been watching her face, he'd have missed the tiny flinch in the smooth space between her eyebrows to match it. _Microexpression. _The Surgeon usually acted with more precision. Maybe the old man was finally starting to slip. _"I worry about you, Malcolm. I think you need help. I'd like to be the one to give it to you."_

Twin jets of heated air stream out of his nostrils in a suppressed snort. _You can't even be here. You _shouldn't_ be here. How the f-_

_"Yeah. I know what you're thinking. But consider this, what shall we say? An alternative therapeutic technique." _ Another pause, some subaudible indication of... movement, maybe. A mute apology delivered by way of touch._"She's very good at this. Trust me."_

_Never again, Dr. Whitly. NEVER again._

_"And if you can't trust me... trust her." _ Across the scant yard or so of space, their eyes meet again. _"Good night, Malcolm."_

She powers down the phone and pockets it as she walks around the bed, never breaking eye contact. When she leans over to fiddle with the leather cuff at his wrist, he takes a minute to get lost following the labyrinthine path of the twin French plaits pinned to her head before telling her to stop. He needs to explain. These are necessary countermeasures, the only security he has. Earlier this week they'd literally become the only thing keeping him alive. How-

A finger lands butterfly-soft across his lips, halting his speech more effectively than a smothering hand. _Shh. _Her lips are drawn into a berry-tinted pucker, the right shape for the noise he's hearing... that he can't be certain she's actually making. Anything else he might have said gets swallowed down, clunking to a stop in his gut next to root beer suckers and a half-digested grilled cheese sandwich.

_Trust her._

She shrugs out of her coat and hangs it on the corner of the headboard, then toes out of her boots and climbs onto the bed. For a time she just sits quietly at his side, propped up on the same pillows humming a breathy minor-key lullaby, one hand pressed over his heart while the other cards through his hair, over and over. He wants to keep watch, not sure if he has to, if he should, but the occasional graze of fingernails over his scalp causes a pleasant trail of tingles that make his eyes slide closed like a contented house cat. His arms relax from their ramrod rigidity at his sides, tremor stilling as his hands come to rest over his abdomen. Their breathing syncs up in a slow comfortable cycle of rise and fall, a natural metronome marking seconds and minutes that bleed into one another unheeded.

Only when his thumb brushes skin does he realize his hand has drifted up to settle beside hers, drawn like the pull of a rare earth magnet.

She stops, corner of her mouth quirking up before she shifts away, while he weighs the likelihood she was actually done and finds it wanting. Little tugs on his ankles draw him down the bed a few inches, directing him to lie flat on his back, arms out from his core, a single pillow supporting his head.

Picking her way carefully over his limbs she crawls back up in a straight path, hovering above him on all fours just long enough to be worrisome before she presses herself down. Their torsos meet in a solid sensational osculation and her arms and legs slide along his own until she's spread out on top of him like a starfish.

Little gusts of breath are ghosting over his mouth like phantom kisses. He's going cross-eyed trying to look at her, but their faces are so close she keeps blurring out of focus until she lays her cheek on the pillow with a compact sigh.

His mind is a string of short-circuiting Christmas lights as he stares unseeing at the ceiling. _What the hell is going on?!_

Unbidden and unwelcome, his father's voice bursts in. _'Think. Work on the problem from the top down.'_

Top down. Right.

The tip of her nose is tickling the edge of his jaw. Her chin is almost resting in his right supraclavicular fossa. Their fingers are curling against each other and he can feel the balls of her feet pressing at the base of his toes through printed chenille.

He'd been wrong the first time they'd met; barefoot, they're both shorter than Martin but she's less than an inch below his own height.

She's... soft, the yielding curves of her body molding over the harder planes of his own, yet nothing about this feels sexual.

_Trust her._

Malcolm's been pinned before, held down, stifled... but he doesn't feel trapped right now. The warm weight of her is oddly calming - and in a flash he gets it. The steady encompassing pressure is suppressing his autonomic nervous system like a human anxiety blanket.

It's comforting, in a way it probably shouldn't be.

For the first time in 27 months, Malcolm sleeps with another person.

For the first time in 8 years, he sleeps without restraints.

For the first night in 2 decades, he doesn't dream.

It might be the nicest (and strangest) thing his father's ever done for him.

In the morning, half-expecting Cat to still be tucked against his side when he wakes refreshed and smiling, already formulating the best way to ask if she wants to stay for breakfast, Malcolm has a reaction he can't quite quantify at the realization she's gone.

Back to his father, only on loan for the night. At least it had proved a good one, better than recent memory can supply.

And if the note in sweetly swooping pink penmanship tucked under his newly programmed coffeemaker is any indication, it doesn't have to be the last.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes, Murder Daddy knows best.
> 
> Comments and kudos feed my soul. If you guys are liking this or have any suggestions or prompts you'd like to see, please let me know.


End file.
